Wednesday

Freddie Kitchens says summer at the Browns complex couldn't stay the way it was. It didn't.

BEREA Whether Freddie Kitchens will talk a good game with the fires of November roaring remains to be seen.

Beyond any August shadow of doubt, the new head coach of the Browns can talk to ANYONE.

That was evident as the Browns reached the huge milestone (ask any player how huge) of moving out of the team hotel.

Wednesday's practice marked the end of Camp Freddie. From here the team makes a hard turn into preseason Game 3 (Friday at Tampa Bay) and rocketing into the opener.

A year ago, when Hard Knocks was following Hue Jackson everywhere, lots of camp goers didn't even know the name of the chubby man who gregariously worked with Browns running backs.

Now he is a celebrity in charge of a team the league wants to see turn into the feel-good movie of the year.

As the final stretching session of Camp Freddie began Wednesday, the head coach made a jovial-general weave through the troops. He neared the fans behind the gallery ropes.

"Yeah, Freddie!" someone yowled.

Kitchens grinned and veered to one of his best-known defensive guys, Sheldon Richardson. He not only fell into conversation with the big defensive tackle. He grabbed Richardson's left foot and pushed back his extended leg to help get it loose.

Then the drills began, and he was fidgety Freddie, parked on the field, shifting his weight from leg to leg like a clock pendulum as he studied offensive drills. Baker Mayfield finished a set, went straight to the head coach, and faced him with hands on hips. Kitchens gave his QB a face-to-face review.

Kitchens made his way to Antonio Callaway, the wideout who is suspended for the first four games. The 44-year-old coach kept pointing as he talked, as if telling the 22-year-old Callaway what he should be seeing from one play to the next. There was something paternal in the look.

Austin Seibert and Greg Joseph fell into their daily practice of attempting five field goals from various lengths. Kitchens kept moving so he was always 15 yards from where the ball was spotted. After Joseph missed from 53 yards and Seibert connected from that distance, Kitchens and special teams coordinator Mike Priefer went off by themselves and had a long talk.

Running backs coach Stump Mitchell, 60, has lived through a lot of training camps since joining the St. Louis Cardinals as a rookie in 1981, and including 2013-16, when he and Kitchens were offensive coaches on Bruce Arians' Arizona staff.

"Freddie has been around some great coaches, people who understand what it takes to get where we want to go," Mitchell said.

Camp Freddie began as a great mystery to rookie D'Ernest Johnson, a bolt-out-of-the-blue guy with a real chance to stick.

"Freddie's a great coach," Johnson said. "He's going to get you ready for games.

"When he says practice is harder than the game, it really is. Every day, we're coming out here pounding each other. And that's what type of coach he is.

"He's going to make sure you're mentally and physically prepared for the games."

Wednesday's close of camp was quiet. Much of the camp has been loud, with Kitchens always keeping his sense of humor, but sometimes blowing his stack.

As to the hit-somebody element ...

"A couple of guys I coached for, that has been their philosophy," the former Alabama quarterback said. "(Bill) Parcels. (Nick) Saban.

"I did not coach with (Saban) in the NFL, but go down to Tuscaloosa right now and see how they are practicing.

"We are trying to make this the norm. That is the whole point of all this. We have to raise our norm up a level. It can’t stay where it has been."

The Browns were 3-36-1 under Hue Jackson. They were 5-3 in the second half of 2018, with Gregg Williams as head coach and Kitchens as offensive coordinator.

But this was Camp Freddie, and Baker Mayfield saw a difference as well as anyone.

"He wanted to get his message across as far as toughness and discipline," the quarterback said. "He never wavered from what he told us at the beginning. It was up to us to buy in.

"He's been that same guy every day. It's been a really good camp."

Camp Freddie. Hard on the body. Conducted with an open mind.

Kitchens is fascinated by the possible surprises in store when general manager John Dorsey gets out his pen. The roster must be trimmed to 53 by Aug. 31.

"You do not ever know where they are going to come from," Kitchens said. "(Damon) Sheehy-Guiseppi showed up to a workout that he was not even supposed to be at. We end up keeping him, but he did not know what was going on. He really did not.

"The strides he has made over the last four or five months have been tremendous. We have several guys like that. Some of them get advertised and some of them do not. But you never know.

"When we went to the Super Bowl in 2008 (Arizona Cardinals), at tight end, we had two undrafted free agents and another guy taken in the seventh round.”

By the eye test and other accounts, Camp Freddie was the start of a good fight. Call it Round 1, with the notes on the scorecard saying, "So far, so good."

Reach Steve at 330-580-8347 or steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

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